This loan shark charged 2,500% interest and 'threatened to kill one of his desperate victims'

Ruthless: John Kiely hit hard-up families with extortionate interest rates and threatened them with violence when they couldn't pay

An ex-convict who built a £ 3million loan sharking empire by terrorising hundreds of hard-up families into making interest repayments of 2,500 per cent was jailed for five years yesterday.

John Kiely, 36, funded a lavish lifestyle by sending teams of heavies to intimidate his desperate victims.

They had taken loans with his company but then struggled to pay them back when Kiely suddenly hit them with extortionate rates.

One family who borrowed money to pay for a wedding were told they would be shot unless they met his interest repayments of between 433 per cent and 2,437 per cent a year.

Kiely - nicknamed Johnny Boy - used his profits to buy a £900,000 mansion with seven bedrooms in the picture postcard village of Chapelenle-Frith, Derbyshire.

He also drove a black Range Rover with a personalised 'Boy' number plate.

By the time he was arrested in October 2008 he was estimated to be owed about £800,000 in loans, spread between up to 1,200 clients in east Manchester.

Inquiries revealed he was an unlicensed money lender and, unknown to the Office of Fair Trading, had served an eight-month jail term in 2008 for assault after he beat up the mother of a client who fell behind on her payments.

Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester was told that during his five-year reign of terror, Kiely would cruise around a council estate in Openshaw in his car hunting for clients who owed him cash and making threats.